USA, OH: Midnight Owl Brewing Co. scheduled to open in Shaker Heights on October 28

A Shaker Heights neighborhood that lost a longtime bakery is gaining a brewery: Midnight Owl Brewing Co. is scheduled to open Saturday, Oct. 28., Cleveland.com reported.

If you walk in to the Chagrin Road space, you might remember Lucy’s Sweet Surrender, but the redesigned location looks little like its predecessor. Joel Warger and Rosemary Mudry are putting finishing touches on the space - replacing bar tops, tweaking the draft system and getting ready to pour beer. Garage doors have been added to the front.

Midnight Owl is 2.5 miles due west of Interstate-271 in an area lined with an assortment of businesses and nearby residences.

“That’s the model that works now – you’ve got a dense area, and to me you’ve got so many restaurants and bars here, but people who live here say, ‘We need more variety, we need something else.’ I think we add to what’s already here,” Warger said.

Having the Van Aken shopping and dining district across the street doesn’t hurt, either.

“It’s a nice area to visit for a multitude of reasons,” he said. “We can all kind of feed off of the crowd we bring to the area.”

Midnight Owl covers 5,000 square feet, which includes the street-level taproom, full kitchen and a good portion of the basement.

Warger said it was a grocery store before Lucy’s, which closed in 2021, so it had solid infrastructure. The couple added trench drains to the basement floor. And it’s been a true team effort between them.

“Rosemary was instrumental in getting this going from the ground up,” Warger said of his wife, who serves as executive director of West Park Kamm’s Neighborhood Development. “I couldn’t have done it without her.”

Added Rosemary: “It’s been kind of a perfect arrangement for us. I think we both brought totally different things to the table. It’s nice because none of our expertise overlapped.”

The couple had their work cut out to convert the space to a brewery, “but we loved the location so much we’ve got to make it work,” Warger said.

The project has been in the works about two years. They faced their biggest challenge early on: The couple worked on financing while dealing with a location in a dry precinct. In May 2022 they had to go on the liquor ballot for a permit from Shaker Heights to “wet” the precinct. They needed signatures; they got them.

“The neighborhood has been very supportive and excited for us to open,” Warger said.

For Warger, this is his third brewery. He started at Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood, then became the initial brewer at Goldhorn Brewery on E. 55th Street in 2016.

“This will be the first time it’s just me and Rosemary,” he said. “That’s how I see the evolution of my career - what else left is there to do? Can I open and maintain a place? That’s the challenge this time around. We believe in small business, we believe in local businesses, we believe in family business. We’re trying to build something that will be more than just making money.”

Warger’s altruism is genuine. But beer and money do go together: People like to pay for good beer, and Warger knows how to make tasty craft brews. His Polka City Pilsner and Dead Man’s Curve IPA helped put Goldhorn on the map.

Midnight Owl is using a 10-barrel system. And in an efficient use of space, they had to cut a hole in the floor to accommodate fermenters that rise from the basement.

“That was the first challenge,” he said.

“I originally didn’t think we would have tanks stacked on top of each other, but that’s the only way to kind of get them in here.”

To start, Warger is brewing a solid core group: India Pale Ale, Kolsch, Altbier, American Pale Ale, Hazy IPA and Hefeweizen. The brewery will have 12 total taps, with about eight on at all times, he said.

They also made two key hires for kitchen and operations.

“This was all new to us,” Warger said. So they hired Jeff West and chef Edgard Sanchez. West is a veteran general manager in the Cleveland-area hospitality scene. Sanchez is originally from Nicaragua and knows Italian cuisine.

“It’s good to be somewhere where somebody gives you the chance that you can show that you can do stuff,” Sanchez said. “Joel and Rosemary are really good at seeing people’s potential.”

Warger and Mudry remain modest about their venture.

“We have a lot to learn. I am sure there are going to be hiccups and tough decisions, but at least they will be ours. We can learn and grow,” Warger said.

“It was definitely a challenge, but we’re here.”

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